


with you as my compass

by emily_420



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Genre: M/M, this is honestly mostly domestic fluff & d&m's & soft touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-02-03 06:19:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12742716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emily_420/pseuds/emily_420
Summary: Edo and Saiou recover from their near-deaths, and attempt to figure out where they stand, and where they should be going.





	with you as my compass

**Author's Note:**

> 'edo and saiou are so soft oh my god kill me': the fanfiction 
> 
> set directly after episode 104/judai beating saiou

After the Light of Destruction’s defeat, Edo couldn’t seem to keep his hands off Saiou. Even though Edo had been the one hovering uncertainly on the precipice of the Beyond, Saiou seemed worse off, faint, the strength utterly drained from him. Edo kept an arm firmly tucked around his waist, holding him close, just in case. And if he felt like he had to hold Saiou close to prove to himself the he wasn’t going anywhere, this time, well, that was his business.

Thankfully, no one commented on it, even though Edo had a hand rather unnecessarily on Saiou’s upper arm.

They milled around outside the White dorm, seemingly unsure of what they were supposed to do with themselves directly after the world had almost ended, Edo clinging to Saiou, and Saiou leaning his weight against him. Edo wasn’t sure whether that was because he was feeling faint, or something else. He was happy either way.

“What will you guys do now?” Judai asked the pair of them, as if they were a single unit. Edo supposed they might as well have been.

He looked uncertainly up at Saiou; he looked just as lost as Edo felt. “I don’t know,” Edo said carefully. “I know I originally came here because it was my destiny, but now…” he shrugged.

“Our destiny has been bleached white,” Saiou said, something sour and ironic in his tone.

Edo twisted his mouth in a facsimile of a smile and squeezed Saiou’s waist reassuringly. “It just means we can do whatever we want,” Edo said, watching Saiou’s profile, uncaring if the tenderness he felt became obvious. At that point, everything was to the wind; he felt recklessly hopeful, and if nothing else, Saiou deserved the comfort of knowing that he was cared for.

Saiou glanced at him, a faint smile stealing across his face. “Yes,” he said distantly, “I suppose we can.”

 _For the first time_ hung unsaid among the group. Edo realized he’d been trapped by destiny since his father died, and Saiou for even longer. Silently, he reached for Saiou’s hand with his free one, and held it tightly. Saiou squeezed weakly in return, running his thumb over Edo’s knuckles.

“I guess I’ll go back to the pro league,” Edo said, finally, tearing his attention away from Saiou. They had all the time in the world for that, and nothing to tell them otherwise.

“I guess I’ll be his manager,” Saiou echoed, and glanced at him. “If he’ll still have me.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Edo said, voice rough, heart full to burst, “I didn’t follow you through all of this just to leave you. Of course I will.”

“That’s great,” Judai beamed, looking genuinely happy for them. “You should come back to visit sometime, though!”

Edo agreed that he would, though he didn’t know when, and then a KaibaCorp employee dashed up to them and said that Saiou had to go to Domino to get checked at a hospital.

Saiou didn’t look happy about it. “Really?” he frowned. “I’m fine, though.”

“Your friend is basically holding you up right now,” the man pointed out, steadfast. Saiou had an expression like he disagreed on a fundamental level but he couldn’t find the words to express it.

“It can’t hurt,” Edo said. “If something’s wrong, you’ll get help, and if not, then we can just go home and you can rest.”

Sighing, Saiou passed a hand over his eyes. “Alright, alright. Let’s go then.”

They said their goodbyes to the little clump of students, Prince Ojin, and Lind, and followed the KaibaCorp employee to the island’s helipad, where the helicopter was idling. Edo helped Saiou into it and clambered in after him; Mizuchi was already slumped against the opposite window, clearly exhausted.

“Brother,” she said, quiet, and looped her arms around his shoulders. Tentatively, Saiou set his hands against her back.

“Mizuchi…” he said, choking up. “I… I’m so sorry. For all of this. I should have…”

“None of that,” Mizuchi cut him off, stern despite her lack of energy. “You have nothing to be sorry for. We cannot help our fates, brother; one way or another, it would have come to this.” She pulled away from him and resettled herself. “Besides, I knew this would happen; I had resigned myself to playing my role, just as you played yours.”

Saiou regarded her with a pained expression. Edo touched his back lightly, said, “It’s over now. It doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah,” Saiou said, frowning slightly. “Yeah, it’s over.”

There was more that Edo wanted to say. Apologies for not intervening, not being able to break him out of it, dropping the umbrella. But he knew that no matter how he said them, they’d come out… Well, they’d come out in a way he’d rather have stay private. And besides that, they were all tired.

Mizuchi leaned her head on her brother’s shoulder, and Saiou tucked an arm around her. Edo wormed his arm back around Saiou’s waist, held on for dear life, rested his head against his oldest friend’s shoulder, and slept, feeling Saiou’s hair brush his cheek and a warm weight come to rest on the top of his head as he drifted off.

 

Mizuchi and Saiou were seen to by different doctors, to save time. Even so, the hospital visit was longer than it needed to be. That was Edo’s opinion, anyway, and Saiou clearly concurred. He sat grumpily as a doctor checked his eyes and his throat and his pulse and his blood pressure, and sighed heavily when he was told they wanted to do a few more tests. Said tests required Saiou to go to another part of the hospital, alone. Edo sat heavily in the hard chair beside the empty bed and waited, the deafening whirlwind of his thoughts his only company.

Saiou probably _was_ just tired – the doctor hadn’t found anything alarming in the basic examination he’d done, just that Saiou was dehydrated and needed to get some nutrients. Nevertheless, Edo didn’t intend on letting him spend the next few days alone. Mizuchi was a good sister, but since they were kids, she’d believe anything Saiou told her, and follow his every word.

That was probably left over from their time on the streets; either way, Edo didn’t trust her to force Saiou to take care of himself.

Aside from that… They’d have to talk. Edo had made it more than clear how he felt over the last few hours, but Saiou could be remarkably dense when he didn’t have something put to him explicitly. Besides, they’d have to talk even if he wasn’t as perceptive as a mollusk. You couldn’t have a relationship without communication.

If it came to that, that was.

That was the one needle in the haystack of Edo’s hope: Saiou’s readings had never said anything about them as a _them_. He wasn’t sure how to construe that. Either the Light had taken over too much for him to have a chance, or he just… hadn’t thought of it, because he didn’t see Edo in that way. Edo couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

Whatever it was, Edo knew that there was a new destiny forming for him. He’d avenged his father; the destruction had been averted. He would seek a new end. A better one, for the both of them.

 

Edo spent the rest of his time waiting scrolling through news feeds on his phone. The incident with Solas had caused quite a bit of rustling, once word had gotten around enough for people to be talking about it. Most of the articles he found didn’t trace anything back to Saiou, fortunately; just bare-bones speculation about a close-call almost-misfire. A quote from a representative of Misgarth was floating around, too, claiming that their systems had briefly been compromised, but the situation had since been resolved.

It was the kind of political statement that didn’t really explain anything, other than the fact that it had been handled. Ojin hadn’t wasted any time, though, and Edo made a mental note to thank him for that.

A disgruntled Saiou trailed back into the room, along with the doctor.

“He’s free to go home now,” the doctor said. “We couldn’t find anything majorly wrong with him, so.” He shrugged.

“I said I was fine,” Saiou muttered.

“Thank you,” Edo told the doctor.

“Sure. Just make sure he drinks some water and has something filling to eat. Kid’s not looking too hot.”

Saiou glared at the doctor. Edo assured him that he would, and was quick to extricate Saiou from the room.

“Geez, if looks could kill,” Edo said, teasing, once they were out of earshot.

“I don’t know how people stand doctors,” Saiou sniffed. “All… poking around you and impersonal… it’s so uncomfortable.”

“A necessary evil,” Edo offered as they made their way back to the emergency waiting room, where Mizuchi sat with her hands in her sleeves.

She stood when she saw them. “What happens now?” she asked, passive.

“I think Edo wants to take me home with him,” Saiou said dryly.

Mizuchi darted a questioning look at Edo. He shrugged. “Someone’s got to take care of him.”

“Okay,” she said, tone suspiciously neutral, “then I shall go home and have an early night.”

“That’s probably for the best. You need to rest,” Saiou said, which was particularly rich coming from the guy who was a strong wind away from collapsing yet insisted he was fine. Edo met Mizuchi’s eyes and felt the hypocrisy laying plainly between them.

They made their way out onto the street, after that. The KaibaCorp car was waiting for them; they’d been allowed to use it as a taxi service for the rest of the day. Edo supposed it was supposed to keep them from talking about how KaibaCorp’s Duel Academia had allowed the Society of Light to grow out of control and nearly destroy the planet, but personally, he didn’t see that tattling to the media or attempting to sue would get him anywhere. As it stood, Edo didn’t hold them at fault; a whole company couldn’t have moved Saiou’s Wheel of Fortune, let alone a scolding from school faculty.

Let alone a single childhood friend who wanted nothing more in the world than to uphold his promise and save the person closest to him from destruction.

If anyone was to blame, it was Edo. And as he couldn’t feasibly sue himself, he was willing to let the matter rest for the time being. Leaning forward, he asked the driver to drop Mizuchi home and then take them to a convenience store; they both needed something wholesome, and Edo was pretty sure everything in his fridge was beyond hope. When the car stopped, Saiou tried to get out with him, but Edo stopped him with a hand to his shoulder.

“Hey, just wait here, okay? I won’t be long.”

“I’m alright,” Saiou protested, as if Edo didn’t know that he was still having trouble staying upright and conscious.

“No you’re not,” Edo sighed, closing his eyes briefly. When he opened them, he met Saiou’s slightly puzzled gaze and tried to convey the frustration at his utter uselessness he’d been feeling, the need to rectify it, to do something for him. “Please, Takuma. Just… let me take care of you.”

Saiou’s eyes widened a little in understanding, and he gave a little nod, looking faintly embarrassed. “Okay,” he said. “Don’t take too long.”

Edo strode quickly through the chill, nigh-deserted store, filling a basket with green vegetables and some chicken stock. For that night, he’d make some soup, and maybe some rice. After that… he’d figure it out when they got there. As it was, he didn’t know how long Saiou would want to stay with him, how long it would take for him to feel better, but he wasn’t especially getting his hopes up. Saiou was used to taking care of himself, as was Edo; he’d take being coddled for time being, while he was tired, but after that…

 _We’ll see_ , Edo thought, somewhat grimly, as he paid for the food.

Stepping out into the dawning night, he tried to shake the pessimism off him like so much water off a bird’s feathers. It wasn’t what he needed to be doing, just then, worrying about what would make _himself_ happy. He had a new mission: Make Sure Saiou Is Okay Even If It Kills Him. Like anything else he did, Edo would dedicate himself to it. Relentlessly.

 

Edo’s house was dark and stuffy from disuse when they got there; it had been over a month since he’d last come back, with all that he’d prioritized everything that was happening at the school over Pro League duels. There was a dirty mug left forgotten in the living room; a novel he’d been reading lay forgotten on the dining table, next to a map, and some half-read letters. Saiou was long used to Edo’s clutter, so he didn’t say anything about it, just sat down heavily on the couch as soon as he could.

This didn’t concern Edo so much as it took a fire poker and jabbed gleefully at his accumulated worry. “You should take a bath,” he suggested, sounding awfully like a concerned parent and not particularly minding.

“I think I’d fall asleep in there,” Saiou snorted. “Actually, I think I’ll fall asleep right here. That wouldn’t be as bad. At least I’ve got my clothes on.”

“A shower, then.”

Saiou considered that heavily for a moment. “Yeah, okay. A shower. In a minute. I need to sit for a minute.”

“I’ll put dinner on. Tell me if you need anything,” Edo said, knowing full well that Saiou wouldn’t, because he didn’t like to trouble anyone, but putting it out there anyway, because Edo didn’t like to not say what he meant if he could help it. He went into the kitchen, dumping the bag of groceries on the counter and checking the dishwasher. It was half-full of dirty dishes; cursing himself out mentally, Edo turned it on and went to put rice in the cooker.

As he was puttering about, he heard the bathroom door shut and the shower start running. That was good; Edo was a firm believer in the restorative powers of bathing. He ducked out of the kitchen to change – his clothes felt terrible against his skin, at that point, and one of his pinky toes may have been permanently disfigured from the abuse it had endured – and rummaged through his closet for the biggest clothes he could find. Now wearing only some boxers that he generally wouldn’t wear as underwear but were quite comfortable nevertheless and a t-shirt for a band he’d never really listened to, Edo left some sleep pants and a too-big button-up shirt he never wore on the bed for Saiou, and went back to the kitchen to finish up dinner.

Saiou wandered into the kitchen just as Edo was suspiciously sniffing some pickled radish he’d had in the fridge to determine its edibility. He was barefoot, wearing the clothes Edo had left him, the top three buttons undone, his hair a dark wet mess strewn about his shoulders and leaving dark spots on the grey shirt.

“I decided to wash my hair,” Saiou said absently, by way of justifying the fifteen minutes he’d spent sucking up Edo’s hot water. “Felt gross.”

“That’s fine, the rice just finished anyway. Do you want some radish? I _think_ it’s okay,” Edo asked, still leveling a doubtful gaze at the thing.

“No thanks,” Saiou said, mouth twisting. Edo shrugged and sliced off some for himself, putting it in a side dish as Saiou took the bowls of rice to the table and attempted to clear some space on it with minimal success. 

“Just put it on top of something,” Edo said, amused, as he followed with the rest of their meal and some chopsticks. The table was a four-seater, and covered in a feral combination of paper, books, trinkets, candles, and a lone pair of toenail clippers. Edo sat his own bowls on top of a three-month-old newspaper and watched, highly entertained, as Saiou maneuvered a stack of books aside only to carefully place his bowl on top of a magazine.

“How do you live like this.”

“You say that every time. You’d think you’d get used to it.”

“You would also think,” Saiou said, looking very flatly at him, “that in eighteen years of being alive you would have discovered the concept of drawers.”

Edo snorted unflatteringly, and then let out a proper laugh; Saiou smiled along with him. “God,” he said, when he managed to stop laughing, “it really has been too long. Since you were yourself.”

Saiou nodded pensively. “Yeah, I suppose so… I was… in the back seat, for most of that, I think.”

“I missed you,” Edo said, looking down at his soup, idly scooping up some vegetables with his chopsticks.

“I don’t blame you, you know,” Saiou said abruptly. Edo looked up at him; he had a serious, somewhat determined look.

“You should,” Edo said frankly, shoving the vegetables in his mouth and continuing to talk through them like an absolute heathen. “I made a promise, and I couldn’t keep it. I couldn’t do anything for you. You _should_ blame me.”

“Edo,” Saiou sighed, “do you remember how I told you how I see destiny?”

“I remember that you told me,” Edo frowned. “Something about a web?”

“Yeah. Destiny sometimes seems like this big complicated web, with all these tiny little triggers that we can’t always see. And those triggers are the steering wheel for destiny. Any one thing has many possible outcomes, but the one that resolves is the one that gets triggered.”

“Right,” Edo said slowly, pausing to slurp at his soup. “So are you explaining precisely how I fucked up, or do you have a different point?”

“My point,” Saiou said as if he’d barely heard him, “is that this thread – this destiny, where I am freed from the Light – probably had any number of triggers that we couldn’t possibly have known about. Readings,” he pressed on when Edo opened his mouth to speak, “can only tell us what is currently ordained – what has already been triggered, not what _will_ be triggered. So to look at it retrospectively, there is no telling who was at fault for the path we were on – only that we were led there.”

Saiou had folded his hands pensively on the table as he spoke, food forgotten. “Eat your soup,” Edo said. Then, slowly, as Saiou finally ate, “Thank you for that. I still – I do feel guilty, though. It feels like all I did was stand there like a mannequin.”

“You _did_ help, in a way,” Saiou said quietly, his passion seemingly exhausted. “You know – having you there, nearby, reminding me who I was – you were like an anchor for my soul. If it wasn’t for you…” Saiou looked at him plainly. “I might have been lost amidst the light.”

Edo blinked at him. There was a pressure in his chest, a full feeling; his face warmed. “Oh,” he said. “I didn’t realise… But I’m glad. That I could do something.”

Saiou smiled at him. “Besides,” he said, going back to his food, “you know you aren’t required to always be useful to me, right? You’re my best friend; that’s not how that works.”

“Yeah,” Edo said, briefly wiping under his eyes to make sure he wasn’t crying; he wasn’t, at least not physically, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t _want_ to.”

“That’s fine,” Saiou said, dragging a hand through his dripping hair and shaking it behind his shoulders, “as long as you know the difference between wanting to and needing to.”

They dropped the topic after that and focused on eating their dinner. Edo mulled over Saiou’s words; he could understand his perspective, but it didn’t mesh, wasn’t aligning with the way Edo had been looking at things. He’d never had any kind of divining abilities, only second-hand tarot predictions. Edo had heard: he was the Hierophant; he would save Saiou. He’d also heard: the one who will move Saiou’s Wheel of Fortune would be at Duel Academia. And he had gone.

Edo supposed that at the time, he’d known he was attempting to reverse-engineer fate. He supposed that the thread where he saved Saiou was probably long closed off by the time they dueled.

He also supposed that he was glad either of them had come out of it alive to begin with.

Saiou had foreseen his own destruction as a child, and Edo had long known that he was prepared to die any time, resigned to it. Edo… he’d subconsciously been doing something similar – he’d turned his life into a checklist. Avenge his father. Get Plasma. Do whatever he could for Saiou. He’d never formed a plan for after that was taken care of – for the decades of life he suddenly found stretching before him.

Edo had been getting ready to die alongside Saiou, he realized as they rinsed their dishes.

“Oh,” he said aloud, something in him clenching in pain.

“You okay?” Saiou asked, drying his hands and reaching up into a cabinet for a glass.

Edo turned to look at him, leaning his bare elbows on the counter, the grey tile cool under his feet. Saiou was watching him with a concerned look, the glass almost forgotten in his hands. He wasn’t looking his best – his hair was a wet mess, for one, and Edo’s clothes were awkward on him, but even still, the fact that he was there, breathing, looking at Edo with eyes that were still gentle, still understanding, despite everything he’d been through, before the Light and after–

He took Edo’s breath away.                                                

“I just realized I was getting ready to die with you,” Edo said, a little careful.

Saiou’s lips parted soundlessly. “Oh,” he said, a bit lost for words. He cast about, put his glass down next to the sink, and came closer to Edo. “You know I wouldn’t have wanted that,” Saiou said, putting a hand on Edo’s upper arm, where the worn material of his t-shirt ended and gave way to skin.

Edo looked up at Saiou, his earnest expression, his worry. “I know,” Edo said, “but I think I would’ve.”

“Why?”

“I had a–“ Edo looked away from him. “I’d itemized my life. Revenge. Get the card. Help Saiou. After that,” he shrugged, “blank.”

Abruptly, Edo had his face pressed against Saiou’s chest. Saiou had his arms wrapped tightly around Edo’s shoulders, hugging the life out of him. “Oh, Edo,” Saiou said, his voice sounding suspiciously as if he were about to cry.

“Hey, come on,” Edo said, happily taking the opportunity to slide his arms around Saiou’s waist, “it’s not that bad.”

“Yes it is,” Saiou said, pulling back and holding Edo by the shoulders. “I should never have tried to use you–”

“Maybe not,” Edo conceded, covering one of Saiou’s hands with his own, “but you didn’t have to. Since I met you, I’ve wanted to help you, in the same way you helped me; I would have done it all anyway.”

They _had_ gone over this, momentarily, when Saiou’s soul was knocking loosely about and wrapping its tendrils around Edo’s consciousness, but it didn’t hurt to get it sorted corporeally, since they both clearly had their hang-ups. Saiou’s eyebrows were furrowed slightly, as if he were trying to puzzle out why exactly Edo thought that and what he had done to deserve it.

It made Edo remember that one thing he _hadn’t_ said when they were communicating with their spirits, but which he had said very clearly with his hands and eyes all sorts of other body parts. “I love you, if you haven’t noticed,” Edo said helpfully.

Saiou’s hands were still on his shoulders. Edo’s hand was still covering one of Saiou’s. Saiou didn’t look like he knew what he was supposed to do with himself. “I’d hoped so,” he said, voice as weak as his smile.

“Did you now,” Edo said teasingly, happier than he could ever remember being, full of warm, dark hope.

“Yeah.” Saiou tentatively touched his fingertips to Edo’s cheek; Edo leaned into the touch, and Saiou cradled his face proper, purple eyes looking at him with wonder and adoration. “Yeah,” Saiou said, “I had really hoped so. But I didn’t think I’d ever get a chance…”

“I know what you mean,” Edo said. They had both had the specter of Saiou’s destruction hanging over them for years. “But we’re both here.”

Saiou hummed in agreement. “If you’d like,” he said, stroking Edo’s cheekbone with his thumb, “I want to make it up to you. Even if you think I don’t need to, I…”

“You can make it up to me all you like,” Edo chuckled, moving a bit closer to Saiou, touching his waist. “As long as I get to make it up to you too.”

Saiou’s weak smile melted into something truer, deepened like a sunset into twilight. “Looks like we have a lot of work to do,” he murmured, his face nudging ever closer to Edo’s.

“Yes,” Edo smiled, humour lacing his voice, standing on his tip-toes to touch his nose against Saiou’s, “could take us a while.”

“Mm,” Saiou hummed, and dipped his head down and kissed him. It was slow, and clumsy, totally new to the both of them, but sweet – a tender promise, a beginning. The first mark on the blank slate of their destinies.

It was hard for Edo to pull away, but he did, briefly leaning his head against Saiou’s chest. Saiou’s fingers ran almost reverently through his hair, and Edo sighed happily.

“How are you feeling, by the way?” Edo remembered to ask, reluctantly pulling away from the solid warmth of Saiou’s torso, because he was nothing if not determined.

Saiou blinked at him, and then seemed to remember that they existed within a timeline that went beyond the last two minutes in Edo’s kitchen. “Oh, a bit better. I think the food helped. Thank you, by the way.”

“Of course.” Edo reached up again, steadying himself with a hand to Saiou’s chest, and kissed him on the cheek, meeting his flustered gaze as he did so. “I can’t have you dropping off on me, after all.”

Having successfully expressed his deep adoration, Edo stepped over to pick up glass Saiou’d left behind. “Were you getting water?”

Saiou said he was, and Edo filled the glass and passed it over before making himself a cup of tea. They turned the lights off – Edo didn’t care about the mess, he’d deal with it later – and went to his bedroom, where Edo put his tea on his bedside table and flipped open the novel he’d excavated from the dining table and attempted to find where he’d been up to. Saiou had chosen a novel from the heaving mess, too, and sat with it on his knees as he sipped at his water.

Having gleefully thrown all pretence of Not Being Totally In Love into a roaring trash fire, Edo burrowed himself against Saiou’s side and read his book, legs warm under his blankets. It was a crime novel – most of the books he read were, and he would not be criticized for it under any circumstances – and if the dog-ears that had been brutalized into it were to be believed, he was about halfway through it.

He’d read about ten pages when he finished his tea. Five pages later, Saiou put his own book down and announced, “I’m falling asleep.”

Amused, Edo just agreed that they should actually go to sleep, and they both crowded into Edo’s bathroom to brush their teeth and (separately, they had only just gotten together, after all) take a whiz.

Kicking his dirty clothes into a pile – he had four of the same outfit, it wasn’t like it mattered – Edo climbed into bed beside Saiou, setting his unfinished novel aside. He’d finish it later. There was plenty of time. For the first night in quite a long time, Edo fell asleep looking forward to the next day, and every day after, comforted by the darkness and the quiet life by his side.

 

**Author's Note:**

> the stuff saiou says about destiny, i totally made up. i'm not a fortuneteller. if you are a fortuneteller, and this bothers you, have have my full permission to imagine yourself whacking me with a baseball bat like i'm a piñata. also, if you make a "triggered" joke in my hallowed comments section, i will personally appear at your location and spray you with holy water.
> 
> [tunglejungle post](http://emily-420.tumblr.com/post/167549981983/title-with-you-as-my-compass-fandompairing)
> 
> [ko-fi](http://ko-fi.com/B0B6A7KG)


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